[Down in the Dena]

Body of Dreams

Tug-of-War

America the Bleak

[Now I lay]

[Today I heard your name]

Today I heard your name and nothing lingered.
Today the last stitch dissolved and your scar became a brush stroke on the history of my anatomy.
You became a black and white in my yearbook, a placard in a sea of names and accomplishments.
Today you punctuated the conclusion of your chapter in my book.

Today I felt brave.
Today I made progress.
Today I let you lie in your respective place in time, and it felt good to let go.
Today I felt sane again, like me again. 
Today I smiled to a stranger, I sparked a conversation just because that's the kind of person I've always been. 
I didn't need chemical lubrication to be social.
I didn't need you to hold my hand. 
Today I didn't need you at all, and for the first time in a long time I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Panic Attacks & Midnight Snacks

3:38am, I rolled out of bed after my 10th 1-100 countdown to calm my nerves. I count my breaths as I attempt to fall asleep... but I twitch myself awake for the 4th time so I lay in the dark eyes shut as long as I can. My foot won't stop tapping, my mind won't stop racing, my heart is still pounding. What the fuck is wrong with me? I try to lighten the unvisited subjects racing through my mind with things that would normally crack a smile, but they don't... They elicit an even deeper panic. The more still I try to lay the more I panic, the more I want to scream. So I relocate.

3:45am, I paced a few laps around the apartment before I got cold... Deep breaths, more deep breaths.... I cover up with a blanket on the couch and count my pulse ... Trivial things, monotonous things to try and lull my mind into some form of calm.... but my pulse is irregular... So my mind races on with all the medical garbage I associate with an irregular pulse and I WebMD self-diagnose into the obvious black hole, sarcastically I think yep prob just cancer.

3:53am, my feet are ready to run a marathon, my mind still won't shut the fuck up, I still feel my heart beating out of my chest and it's starting to ache...

3:57am, if I let my feet lead maybe my head and heart will give way...

3:58am, I'm going for a run.

Common Threads

I understand anger, I've been there.

Where that cloud of grey rumbles and strikes and consumes you.

I remember what it was like to lose control, not let go, but truly lose it.

To lash out at the ones you hold dearest.

Say things and do things to push them away when they tried to help.

I remember hurting others because I hurt, and because the cliche rings true... misery really does love company.

I remember sorrow. We've all been there in one form or another.

Lying in bed for hours unable to face the gravity of the day.

When food tastes like ash, you stop brushing your hair, or showering, or making any effort.

When you no longer care about yourself, because caring means feeling but numb is just easier.

Sorrow is debilitating. It removes purpose from your life and makes you feel like a soulless, expendable piece of matter.

I know hurt. I've shared the pleasure of her company and all her closest friends...

Betrayal, spite, anguish... passion.

She really encompasses all emotions if you really break her down.

Hurt, means we really cared. To really care means we loved in whatever way we could. To love means we've lived. And to live, well... Then we can say we've had it all.

But we forget the journey sometimes because hurt is a demanding bitch.

We become fragments of what we used to be. A million pieces scattered across the universe longing for one another to be whole again.

Did you appreciate it when you lived? Or do you appreciate it now? Hindsight really is 20/20, and we can't go back.

But somewhere along the trail of tears, we exhaust ourselves from the self loathing and pity, and start searching for that silver lining. Though it's likely tarnished and easily overlooked, sometimes it's just enough to shed light on the burial shroud. Sometimes it's just enough to summon an ounce of forgiveness. Sometimes it's just enough to make us human again.

So we can start the cycle over -

Try living and have a little faith that the outcome will be better this time.

Digest

The peristaltic ebb and flow
Busy cars they come and go
I count them now to numb my thoughts
And lay the life I led to rot

The peristaltic ebb and flow
Love and hate, they come and go
Weak to hate but strong to love
We fit together like a glove

The peristaltic ebb and flow
My memory bank, I dare not go
I fight your vision, I flee your voice
It kills me that I had no choice       

The peristaltic ebb and flow
The moon will rise, the sun will glow
Weak and heavy I trudge on
Day to day and dark til dawn                                 

Frost

To my right a path previously forged ... Gnarled lifeless limbs tangle and grasp at my every step but the path itself dimly lit though definitive... I've been here before this route a changeless sign of infinite darkness with no destination, this path resists no one... It welcomes its adventurers with open claws and gnashed veneers contorted to a jagged grin ... It embraces the folly and drafts on the insatiable void of its travelers...

So I stand divided one foot on the familiar path of least resistance, the other in opposition... If I choose to forge my own I fear the unknown... I fear the potential of rejection or the possibility of failure... What if the new path leaves me still unfulfilled? What if I stumble in my best effort? What if I make a fool of myself?.... But what if it leads me to the the end of my search... And fills my heart's every desire?

Gravity

I've never experienced such gravity from a single source...

It's unfathomable to me how you always keep me grounded but still keep me afloat.

You remind me how much it hurts to fall... but how alive I feel when I'm standing with you.

You make me stronger and you test my limits... though I'm also guilty of pushing yours.

We've always pulled toward each other so naturally...

Creating our own little universe where everything just comes together and fits so easily... unless one of us gets scared and pushes away.

But I've learned that I can't fight gravity.

You're always with me, and I'm bound by our all or nothing dynamic... a law I've only recently come to understand. 

In the Age of Enlightenment, I learned that fighting you is futile and only ever created the phenomenon that left our perfect world in shambles... this is Our History's dark ages...

Never the less, we are resilient forces you and I.

And when you're done pushing back, we'll reunite cautiously at first and eventually sort out our fears together.

We'll set new laws and create new boundaries that form a sturdy foundation...

And this time, we'll recreate a world hand in hand that will last an eternity.

We've come a long way gravity, we've had ups and downs...

But I'm truly grateful for you because you've changed the way I look at everything... 

Before I discovered you, my world was flat.

DNR

When people ask me how I'm doing it's always an auto response...

Oh I'm good how are you?
Meaningless pleasantries and a change of subject because they aren't really interested in how I feel...

They'd think it melodramatic or pessimistic and shun me for my honesty because raw, listless, unrelenting heartache is the Pandora's box of welcomed conversation....

So rather than open it I'll choke it down, and put on a face that gets me by without being pelted by halfhearted insincerities

And I won't tell them...

That since you left it feels like I've been paralyzed in some sort of tragic accident.

That a cornerstone of my everyday has gone missing, and I'll spend the rest of them searching for a way to cope with this loss.

That I've lost my direction and purpose and the only reason I get out of bed anymore is to fill an obligation or to escape my dreams that are still riddled with your presence

They wouldn't understand how I bury you every day with these obligations, praying that if i keep my hands, mind, and body in motion you'll stay in the background and let me be present.

Because when I stop, thoughts of you drown me.

I can't explain the regret I feel for not understanding what I had or how I felt when any of this mattered... and how much more it hurts to have no way of reconciliation

They don't see the way you imprison me in my moments of solitude...

Or how every song I loved carries a piece of you.

And as much as I hate being reminded, those songs are all I have left –

So I play them on repeat.

They don't know that when you left you took my better half.
That I'm hollow and no longer human
And that I needed you
That All I ever needed was you

They'll never know that and neither will you...

51

The human condition
A house of cards
A frail structure contingent on the crux of continuity
Shaken
Falling
Crumbling
Feeble
Fragments of one's former self
Rubble
Waster
Scraps
Destitution
In the depths of despair we find resilience
To rebuild our house of cards.

EVER UPWARD

A constant gardener is never satisfied...
His work is never done.
A constant gardener finds growth in the most stagnant places...
He's creative, and always problem solving.
A constant gardener sees frustrations on the horizon and reframes them as opportunity.
A constant gardener is thorough, and never cuts corners or chooses the path of least resistance.
He is patient despite his innate sense of urgency.
A constant gardener see the world in a light not readily apparent to others...
A constant gardener may chase perfection, but will appreciate his short-comings.

Excelsior.

INTO THE GREY

So broken, so small,
I afford no emotion for the inevitable fall.
My heart stitched carelessly how ignorantly trite!
The clouds the loom upon a halo of blight.

In the darkness gathers a ferocious storm.
The grey, the anger, the hopeless forlorn.

My silent shadow, my tenacious foe.
Patiently stalking sheathed in its furrows;
Loosed rabidly upon its meal prey,
Now feasts on my thoughts engulfed in grey.

SANS

Sand beneath my feet
Bound in my beliefs
The hour glass retreats
     - Buries me
     - Carries me
To places I don't want to be
     - Confronts me
     - Wants me
To mesh with its conformity
     - Happily
     - Placidly
I drown inside the depths of me
Safe inside the wall I've built
Capsizing in a sea of guilt
Fragile hope begins to wilt
     - This interlude
     - Of solitude
Encapsulates my every mood
     - My fortitude
This inner feud
Contradictions of a multitude

I've come unglued.

A Novel

And I'll wait... And I'll wait
Life will go on, life will propel me forward onto achievements and new challenges...

But this piece of me will forever remain stationary.
This part will wait until you meet me toe to toe, Palm to Palm, and pulse to pulse...

Until then I'll be incomplete...
My stomach will knot and my chest will ache. And the noose of tears of reality will cinch tighter with every passing day...

Until you end my search, ease my mind, calm my fears, release my chains, forgive my flaws, and fill my cup...

Until you're my partner in crime, the muse of my works, the rationale in my rampage, the captor of my attention, the object of my affection, the keeper of my stars, and my audience of one...

Until I'm the wind in your sails, the sidekick on your adventures, the caregiver on your sick days, the hand on your cheek, the copilot on your journey, and the final chapter of your odyssey...

And well be the final chapter of each others novels
Where these pieces of us will remain bound, covered, And complete.

AUBREY DAVIS

{2016}

{2015}

{2014}